A Golden Apology?

I received the below email from my golden child brother this past weekend.  The title of the email was “Apology”

 

My brother.

I am sorry that I upset you. I was drunk the night we talked, and have since really cut back. I was frustrated by some of your behaviors for sure , but I was unkind. For that I am sorry.

I really am.

I’m not exactly sure why you’ve chosen to shut me out for 16 months but that is your choice.

Let me know if you’re willing to talk.

I wish you well, always have.

 

So what do you think? Is this a genuine, heartfelt apology?

Curious as to your thoughts,

Stephen Bach

Eleven (the fourth redux)

1.  0053

2.  0110

3.  0114

4.  0125

5.  0145

6.  0153

7.  0153

8.  0153

9.  0154

10.  0154

11.  0155

The above are times of day.  For those of you not familiar with military time, 0053 is 12:53 AM.

The above times are all the times that my golden child brother attempted to call me.  Eleven of them.  In the middle of the night.  On my birthday.

Only once did he leave a message.  His message “Hi Stephen, this is (your golden child brother), Happy Birthday.  I hope you’re well.”

His message is absolutely fine.  I have no problems with his message.  Had he called at a reasonable hour, had he not called eleven times in the middle of the night, perhaps I would have considered accepting his message as genuine.

Who does that?  Who calls someone eleven times in the middle of the night to wish them a happy birthday?  Does he do this to his other friends, or am I the only one that receives such treatment because I’m his brother?

My view is that the eleven calls in the middle of the night on my birthday shows absolutely no respect for me or my life.  He’s angry at me that I won’t talk to him, and feels that if he badgers me in the middle of the night that I will be forced to answer and talk to him, which means he gets what he wants, a conversation and potentially a relationship with me again.

Sorry bro, badgering me with phone calls in the middle of the night on my birthday is not going to make me inclined to talk to you or want to have a relationship with you again.

Stephen Bach

Please Come Back, Mr. Scapegoat (the third redux)

It seems my golden child brother is picking up the pace in his attempts to reestablish contact.  This Saturday night at 11:45PM (2345) I was again subjected to a text message and a phone call.

Text Message:  

I’ve lost 55 lbs.  Still care about you.  (included was a picture of himself showing the weight he had lost)

Phone Message:

Hey Stephen, this is (your golden child brother).

I apologize to you if what I said to you upset you, offended you, whatever… but we’re brothers and I should hope that our shared relationship and honestly my love for you… I have love for you, man… I want you to a least f**king talk to me!

I’m willing to talk whenever you’re willing to talk.

Hope you’re well.

Instead of me analyzing what my brother had to say this time, I’d like you, my readers to give me your thoughts on his message.  Is he being genuine?  Is there an apology here?  What is his motive for his attempts to reestablish our relationship?

I do have my own thoughts which I intend to add later after hearing from a few of you.

I look forward to your feedback!

Stephen Bach

Please Come Back, Mr. Scapegoat! (the second redux)

Some background:  My golden child brother’s twin died 2 years ago at the end of April.  I did find it somewhat difficult to let the anniversary of his passing come and go this year with no contact with my family of origin.  However, I knew that if I did contact my family of origin during this time, that it would proceed down the usual path and there wouldn’t be any change.  Often, No Contact is not much fun, but it is what I need to do.

I had not heard from my golden child brother for about 2 months until a few days ago when he subjected me to a full broadside via email, text and phone.

 

This incident occurred at 12:15 AM (0015) on a Sunday morning.  I was in bed sound asleep.  I did not respond and did not answer his phone call.

Via email:

Subject line of “You are my brother” and no message.

Via text: 

The first text message he sent was a picture of his deceased twin’s favorite hat that my golden child brother had finally managed to obtain from his deceased twin’s widow

Then a text message that said “Call me when you’re ready”

Via phone:

He called me and left a brief message.  The first words of the message were “I’ve had a rough week….” And then he went on to talk about how much he was hurting, etc.

 

Contact by all above means occurred within a 10 minute time window.

 

All of it was quite incredible.  I have not communicated with him in 6 months.  Again, he calls me in the middle of the night, showing absolutely zero respect for me and for what I may be doing.  And again, all his communication is completely selfish.

With his “You are my brother” email, he is trying to pull on the obligation string that says I’m “required” to have a relationship with him just because we are brothers.  If I were to respond, I think the proper response to his email would be “True”, because our brother status is not in any doubt, but it’s already common knowledge that we are brothers, so what’s the point?  Furthermore, our status as brothers is immaterial to our impasse.  I will not tolerate his selfish behavior no matter what our relation.  Just because he’s my brother doesn’t give him a special pass to treat me with contempt and tell me how screwed up I am.  Looking at a message like this in my current detached emotional state from my family is somewhat comical.  I had an inkling to respond with “The sky is blue”, which is also common knowledge and immaterial to our impasse, but thought better of it.  When dealing with a narcissist, anything I say can and will be used against me.

The text messages are more disturbing and extremely selfish on many levels.  His sending me a picture of his deceased twin’s favorite hat is truthfully quite disturbing. He and I have no relationship whatsoever, and he sends me a picture of his deceased brother’s hat that he had managed to finally get my deceased brother’s widow to relinquish?  In his mind, he won the battle with his deceased brother’s widow by getting her to relinquish the hat, and he needed to show me that he had won so that I could be impressed and congratulate him on obtaining it.  To me, it’s irrelevant that he has the hat.  My deceased brother’s hat has NOTHING to do with my golden child brother’s and my relationship.  It’s an attempt on my golden child brother’s part to deflect any conversation we might have away from the issues.  I totally understood my deceased brother’s widow wanting to keep the hat as a remembrance of her deceased husband, but to my golden child brother, that was unacceptable, and through coercion and manipulation he finally managed to get her to give it up, because he thought he should have it and not her.

Picture of My Deceased Brother’s Favorite Hat Sent to Me by His Surviving Twin Brother

The “Call me when you’re ready” text is ridiculous.  What would we talk about?   Why in the world would I think that our discussion would be any different this time than the last dozen or so times we attempted to have the same discussion?  History says that the discussion we would have would be all about him, and when I would attempt to bring up any issues, he would immediately shut me down and then tell me he “doesn’t get it, no matter how hard he tries”.   The only reason he wants to have a discussion is so that *HE* can feel better (i.e, I give him narcissistic supply).  It has nothing to do with me.  So why would I want to make that phone call?

Which brings up the phone message:  The first words out of his mouth were “I had a rough week…”  Incredible!  Yes, I believe he has had a rough week with the anniversary of his twin’s passing, and truthfully I do feel empathy for him.  I have no idea how difficult it is to lose your twin.  But… his twin’s death has NOTHING to do with his and my impasse!  Again, the first words out his mouth are all about him and have nothing to do with me or our dilemma.

Yes, another attempt at contact from my family of origin, and another validation of my decision to go no contact.  Ironically, I spent decades seeking validation in vain from my family.  Now I receive validation from my family with every attempt they make at communication.

Stephen Bach

Please Come Back, Mr. Scapegoat! (the first redux)

I have been no contact (NC) with my entire family since October of last year. I have not talked to my narcissist mother (NM) since May 2013 and my golden child (GC) brother since October 2013, and they are all that is left of my family of origin (FOO). My mother has made no attempt to contact me other than sending me cards for the holidays and a few hand written letters where she felt she needed to tell me what was going on in her life without even acknowledging that something might be wrong between us. I have not replied to any of her communication. My golden child brother had not contacted me at all other than a few emails in October and a text in late November. I had not heard from him at all for three months.

Then, a few days ago, I woke up in the morning to a slew of texts from my golden child brother. Here is what he had to say:

Hey Brother. Let me know when you’re ready to talk. I’m here. We need to talk. I’m contacting you as someone who gives a shit about you and always has. Always. I still do. I’m allowed to be frustrated. You’re allowed to not like my frustration. This is human man. Shutting me out is cruel. I am your brother. Your brother who is struggling. And human. Seriously (Stephen) u don’t get it. I don’t get it.

One thing that I’ve learned to do when I receive communication from my family is to look at what’s NOT there. What’s not there in his texts?

• There is absolutely nothing there that acknowledges and respects my feelings in this matter other than I’m “allowed to not like his frustration”. I didn’t know I needed his permission to not like his frustration.
• There is absolutely nothing there that respects my right to determine if I want to have a relationship with him.
• There is absolutely nothing there that acknowledges that his behavior might be part of the reason for our impasse.

Another thing I learned to do when I get these communications is break out the FOG tool. The FOG tool is a tool that I have created to check for manipulation tactics. FOG stands for Fear / Obligation / Guilt, the primary methods used to manipulate someone.

So he states that his desire is that we resume our relationship and “talk”.

• Should I talk to him because he’s “struggling”? (Guilt)
• Should I talk to him because he’s my brother? (Obligation)
• Should I talk to him because otherwise he will perceive me as being “cruel”? (Fear)
• Should I talk to him because he “always gave a shit about me”? (Guilt)
• Should I talk to him because he’s “frustrated”? (Guilt)

Yep, his texts are all about him and are full of manipulation. Should I talk to someone who wants to talk to me just because if I didn’t they would perceive me as cruel or it would frustrate them? Absolutely not! His perceiving me as cruel or being frustrated by me is his issue, not mine! For instance, someone might think I’m cruel because I don’t like cats. Should I go out and get a cat because otherwise someone may perceive me as cruel, even though I don’t like cats? No! I should get a cat because I want to get a cat! i.e. I should talk to my brother because I *WANT* to talk to him, not because I’ve been manipulated into doing it! The truth is, I’d be happy to talk to him, as soon as it stops being all about him, and that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

To put his texts in another light, if you look at the email he sent that I discussed in “Please Come Back, Mr. Scapegoat“, my GC brother said “I cannot understand what your continuing issues are with our family as hard as I try”. In the above text he literally says “I don’t get it”. In the last phone conversation we had back in October (see Golden@2300) he literally said he was “tired of talking about it” and was demanding I apologize for speaking ill of our family. But now he wants to talk, even though he literally says he doesn’t get it and he is tired of talking about it? To me, that would indicate that he wants to have a conversation, but it’s not going to have anything to do with me, it’s going to be all about him. It’s going to be a one way conversation, with him again telling me how to live my life and how much I’ve hurt him and how cruel I am without any acknowledgement on his part that I am entitled to my feelings on the issue and that I have a right to do what *I* feel is best for me.

I think his comment “Shutting me out is cruel” is incredibly ironic for several reasons:

First: It’s portrayed as if I am evil and cruel for not permitting my family to abuse me any longer; for not freely handing them the knife that they will use to stab me. It’s like I took their doormat away and now they don’t have anywhere to wipe their feet. They find that to be incredibly unsettling. They either have to get me to put the doormat back (I resume my scapegoat role and let them wipe their feet on me again) or they have to make do without a doormat (that’s not really an option; too messy) or they have to find a new doormat. I get the feeling that my golden child brother, being the only surviving sibling other than myself, is likely subconsciously aware that he may become the scapegoat with me out of the picture and he’s desperate to get me back into my scapegoat role to save his own skin. He doesn’t want to learn what it’s like to be the family doormat.

Second: My GC brother readily admitted that he shut me out and acted cool during the five month period between the night when I invited him over and explained what I had come to realize about our family and the phone conversation where he told me to “get over it” and required I apologize. Now, when I shut him out, I’m being cruel? So it’s OK for him to shut me out and he’s “allowed to be frustrated” but he doesn’t extend me the same courtesy? What a hypocrite!

Ultimately, his texts are all about drawing me back into my scapegoat role. Sorry brother, that’s not going to happen.

Stephen Bach

Please Come Back, Mr. Scapegoat!

I received the below email from my brother a few days ago. I have been no contact with him since our phone call about a month ago where he felt the need to spend two hours very late at night telling me what to do with my life and to just “get over” my past.  I documented our discussion in Golden@2300 in the related articles below.   I did bump into my brother at a mutual friend’s birthday party about two weeks ago, but we only exchanged pleasantries. When he tried to start a conversation about our differences at the party I firmly told him I didn’t want to discuss it and walked out the door.

His email (in italics) and my comments (in lavender) ->

I hope you are well brother. Happy to talk to you at any time. I do love you, and I care very much about you. Yes, you care about me continuing to fulfill my scapegoat role, because if I don’t fulfill that role, you might start being scapegoated, and you subconsciously are aware of that.

I’m pretty sure I pissed you off soundly when I last called. That was not my intent. I’m sorry if I hurt you, but I also felt hurt by what happened between us over the last few months. I’m sorry, but…. which means I’m not really sorry and truthfully I feel justified in my behavior.  I sincerely mean that. I tried to explain why. I cannot understand what your continuing issues are with our family as hard as I try.  It’s because you are so steeped in denial that you can’t possibly understand.  I have tried to help by listening for decades and setting you up with counsellors multiple times including now. You don’t need to see the counselor if you don’t want, but I truly feel like it may help you. I strongly feel that you are tied down by these issues and have been since we’ve known each other as adults. This is true, I have been tied down by these issues. He obviously does not approve of how I am dealing with it. How I deal with it is my business. It’s not his job to tell me what to do! Ironically, he needed to take the time to list all the ways HE felt HE had been supportive of me, not once asking what *I* thought *I* might need to help me get beyond my family issues.  I understand where the issues started -what I don’t get is why they are so raw decades later. I’m concerned, as I said, that you missed an opportunity for truly exploring these painful issues for you and learning to grow beyond.  I certainly don’t feel that I missed the opportunity! I’m still working on myself every day! I’m not working on myself the way HE would recommend so that means it’s wrong. This is exactly the way NM would approach this topic. “if you don’t do it my way, then you’re doing it wrong”. Furthermore, he truthfully has NO IDEA what I’m doing! We have only seen each other about 4 times in the last 6 months, and every time was in a group setting.

In addition, I am struggling greatly with (NM and my stepfather) and their issues. I know you’re not involved there but that weighs greatly on me. It frustrates me that I have to bear it alone, without (my deceased twin), and without you. I know you can’t be involved, but I’m reminded powerfully of all of these issues every time I talk to Mom. Could this powerful reminder actually be you coming face to face with your denial about our family? Seriously, how badly does a parent have to treat a child for their child to want nothing to do with them as the parent approaches the end of their life?

I’m going through a very deep depression and struggling hard to keep my shit together. I am so terribly hurt by (my twin brother’s) death, and the full impact continues to sink in.  This statement is so amazingly hypocritical it’s mind boggling! His twin died suddenly about 18 months ago. So he can be in “deep depression” about that as long as he wants but I’m not allowed to be affected by being robbed of my dignity as a human being during my childhood and beyond at the hands of my mother and father? I typically don’t like profanity but this statement is a serious WTF?

In the end, we are brothers, and I’m allowed to tell you my side even if you don’t like it. Patently untrue. If I don’t like it, I’m not required to listen to it!  I don’t think I’ve ever been stern with you or tried to be anything but supportive before. These were issues that I was struggling with, and I felt and still feel that I needed to say what I said. Well, then we have nothing to discuss.  We are still brothers, and you can disagree with what I said and tell me to screw off if you want. Yes, and going no contact with you is me telling you to “screw off”.  I’ll still listen and be there if and when you want to discuss or move on. No thanks, I’ll pass.

I noticed that we’re no longer friends (on a major social media site). I’m a bit taken aback by that – noted it after I saw you at (the birthday party). I’ll be honest, that hurt. Doesn’t seem right to me, and tells me how upset you are. I got the message. No you didn’t, and this email makes it obvious that you didn’t get the message.

I love and care about you (Stephen). I mean that. If you need a break from me, that’s ok.  I didn’t know I needed your permission to go no contact.

Life is really short man. We both know it too well.  Yes, it’s too short to waste it on people that don’t treat me with respect, even if those people happen to be family.

Its truly a pretty amazing email. He really throws on the FOG (Fear / Obligation / Guilt) heavily to try and get me to do his and NM’s bidding. Everything from telling me how he’s the only one supporting NM to how he’s been so supportive of me to how much he loves me to the fact that he’s in deep depression.

Honestly, getting me to reassume the scapegoat role is definitely in his personal best interest. He will soon become exposed to scapegoating behavior by NM if I stay no contact with her and he’s the only one that has anything to do with her.

I do really appreciate that I have gained the ability that I can see right through the FOG now. I was never able to do that before, and would take the FOG hook deep in my gullet and go running back into my role. I actually found an email I sent my mother about 10 years ago during the college Christmas incident (see “So You Want to Go to College?” in the related articles below) where I told her I didn’t want anything to do with her. I didn’t make it stick that time. This time it is definitely sticking. It seems my method of working on myself is actually working for me, even if my method isn’t working for my family. But then why would I expect my method to work for them?

Stephen Bach

Related articles

• Golden@2300 (thenarcissistsson.wordpress.com)
• Know Your Role (thenarcissistsson.wordpress.com)
• Her Greatest Failure (thenarcissistsson.wordpress.com)
• So You Want to Go to College? (thenarcissistsson.wordpress.com)

Golden@2300

This past Sunday evening I received a surprise phone call from my golden child brother at 11PM (2300).  My brother is my only surviving sibling.  His identical twin died of a pulmonary embolism about 18 months ago.  He is an otolaryngologist doctor that went to Yale for his premed training.  He lives about 20 minutes away from me.  He and I both work normal day shift hours, so a call this late on a Sunday when we both have to work on Monday morning seemed to be a bit odd.  I thought something might be wrong or someone was hurt or in the hospital.   We had not previously talked for about a month.

About 6 months ago, when I first figured out my entire family dynamic and my mother’s narcissism, I had my golden child brother come over to my house and I explained to him what I had learned and waited to see his reaction.  My stance was that if he was going to deny what I had learned about my family dynamic and chose to continue to be my mother’s flying monkey, that I would also have to go no contact (NC) with him as well as my narcissistic mother (NM).  I really hoped I wouldn’t have to go NC with him, too, but I was prepared to do it.  The conversation seemed to go OK, and he seemed to understand that he and I had very different childhoods.  I decided it was enough to continue our relationship for the time being, but I didn’t think we would necessarily be close.

Then the call at 2300 on a Sunday…

The conversation, although posed as a discussion about me, was truthfully all about him:

His first statement to me was that what I did and said 6 months ago was terrible and made him feel bad about himself and he left my house that night feeling very guilty.  I told him I could understand why he might feel that way.  He then wanted me to apologize.   I refused.   This made him quite upset.   I told him I had nothing to apologize for and that I can understand why the situation made him uncomfortable but in my estimation I did nothing for which I needed to apologize.  He told me to never do it again.  I said, “OK”.  I’ve seen this theme before in him.  When I say something about our family that makes him uncomfortable because he might have to face his own denial about his upbringing, he will almost immediately shut me down.  Rather frustrated, he continued to tell me how he had been stewing on this since that night and that it had really hurt him.  I kept validating his feelings but refused to apologize.  He ultimately wanted me to apologize for hurting his feelings, something that I was not going to do.  Sometimes the truth hurts.  It doesn’t mean that an apology is required.

Next he asked if I was in counseling.  I told him not at the moment, but I do have a counselor that I can see if I feel I need to work on myself in that fashion further.  He then told me that he didn’t think my counselor had done me any good and that I needed to find someone else. He formed this opinion based on seeing me 3 times since the night 6 months ago, and all three times were in a group setting.  I told him he was entitled to his opinion, but that I disagreed with him and that my counselor had done a great job of identifying the issues.  I also told him that I had been doing a lot of work on my own which has also been very helpful.  When I stopped my regular counseling sessions, my counselor told me that I had made “amazing progress in a very short period of time” and that I didn’t need to come back unless I felt I needed to.   My brother insisted that my counselor was “useless”.  He informed me that he had contacted a psychotherapist friend of his with whom he had shared my story (I see this as a boundary issue).   His friend told him that I needed to be in counseling for “at least two or three years”.  Interesting.  I’m not sure I want to see a psychotherapist that can determine how long I need to be in counseling without ever talking to me.   Sounds like my brother’s counselor friend is more in it for the money.  I thanked my brother for his concern and then told him I would do some more introspection and decide if my gut is telling me I need to go back for more counseling or if I needed to switch counselors.   He insisted that I needed more counseling with a different counselor and that he was only telling me this “in love”.  (i.e.  With my superior perception, I can see how messed up you are, even if you can’t.  I love you enough to point out how messed up you are to you, and to tell you when you need further counseling).

Now quite frustrated with my lack of compliance to his requests, GC bro told me that he was “tired of talking about this” and that I should have “figured it out 20 years ago” and that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.   Umm.. wait 1, didn’t he call me?   Now he’s tired of talking about it?  I told him that I disagreed with his opinion that I should have figured this out sooner and that it’s taken me as long as it’s taken me to figure this out because that was exactly how long it needed to take.  I told him I can’t be angry with myself for being stuck in the FOG (fear / obligation / guilt) for so long and the best thing I can do for myself is to forgive myself for not coming to terms with my upbringing sooner and to move forward being thankful that I did finally figure it out.

He next told me that I had put him in the middle between my mother and him and he didn’t like it.  I told him that I can understand why he feels that he is in the middle, but that it is ultimately his decision whether he decides to let himself be in the middle.  I told him he did not need to talk to me about my mother and that I would prefer that he not discuss anything about me with my mother.  He then told me I had a moral obligation to make sure NM was taken care of.  I told him I disagreed and that she was an adult and was capable of taking care of herself.  Next he informed me that, at his urging, NM had moved out of her house because of my stepdad’s raging.  My stepdad is a former alcoholic that is essentially a dry drunk.  He still exhibits a lot of the behaviors of an alcoholic, sans the drinking.  I have never liked him at all.  In my opinion, NM just jumped on the first train that showed up at the station. He has recently been diagnosed with dementia.  Unfortunately his dementia has made his raging much worse.  NM made the choice to marry a former alcoholic shortly after my father passed away;  a man who was prone to periods of raging and treated her quite poorly even before the dementia set in.  So now it’s my responsibility to help NM because of the bad choices she made?  I’m supposed to enable NM to continue making bad choices?  Nope.  My stepdad’s children have little to no contact with him.  They have him figured out.  NM needs to figure it out for herself.  Honestly, it’s not my problem.

The next topic was my dating life.  He told me that I shouldn’t be dating anyone and that I needed to stay away from dating for “at least a year”.   Part of his comment was based on the fact that I had briefly dated a woman for about 6 weeks and had brought her to an event where my brother was in attendance.  He told me she was a “train wreck” (an opinion formed based on a 5 minute conversation he had with her) and that I needed to stay away from her and all women.  I certainly didn’t see her as a train wreck, although she did have her own set of issues, which is one of the main reasons I am no longer dating her.   I told my brother that it was my decision who and when I chose to date, and that I had since ended the relationship with the woman he had met.  His statement: “Good!  You don’t need that right now!”  So he knows better what I need than I do?   Again, he only told me this because he “loved” me.  (i.e. You’re too dumb to figure this out, so I will tell you what you need to do.  I’m only willing to share my superior knowledge of what’s best for you with you because I “love” you)

It’s now 1AM (0100).  My phone battery finally dies.  I put the phone down and pour myself a glass of wine.

I realize I had just spent 2 hours talking to my mother.

Stephen Bach

Related articles

• Is it Murder? (thenarcissistsson.wordpress.com)
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